Leader

On the Threshold of Something New

The new year began a new decade. At the end of the old one, Finland made
a proposal for the EU budget. Unfortunately the plan for a considerable increase
of the Horizon 2021—2027 research programme funding did not make
it to the budget. By now it is time to stop the political hair-splitting about
how Finnish science will improve by applying for EU funding.

The new decade, then, opens with a rainy everyday life. The central
themes of 2020 include the universities’ collective bargaining that begins
in February, the preparation of the state budget for 2021 and open science
and copyrights. This is also the decade when the Vision for higher education
and research in 2030 will be implemented.

The main contracting parties in the collective bargaining will be the
Negotiation Organisation for Public Sector Professionals (JUKO), Trade
union Pro and the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL.
Universities are represented in the negotiations by the Finnish Education
Employers. The general situation in the labour market has been exceptionally
difficult since the autumn. JUKO’s new negotiation manager for the
university sector Katja Aho and her team will face a challenging task. I
believe I speak for the entire university sector when I wish our negotiators
success — We are the university 3.0.

During the spring of 2020, the next state budget will also be prepared.
Last autumn’s budget reinstated the university index and brought 40 millions
of extra funding to universities. However, the money seems to go into
advancing lifelong learning and producing degrees. The money reserved for
research and development will not take Finland towards a 4 % R&D activity
share of the gross domestic product. The R&D deficit that Finland has is in
the billions. Reaching the four percent level by 2030 would require constant public and private additional investments of a few
hundred million euros – every year – for ten years.

In addition to the amount of money, universities
need to be concerned about the quality of money.
When research funding fragments into projects, it is an
inefficient use of money. Universities are not subcontractors
who conduct reviews. Universities are strong
concentrations of competence and knowledge, and
they should be developed further as such. One central
act that would strengthen universities’ position and
autonomy would be their significant capitalization.
Every euro that capital produces helps a university to
function more independently than currently.

Another issue that has become current is open
science and the self-archiving of peer-reviewed academic
articles. This is a desirable principle, but with
qualifications. The constitution and the copyright
law guarantee that researchers have a right to their
works and their financial utilization. Researchers have
a right to decide about the publishing of their works
in ways of their choice and in channels of their choice
as well as about the financial utilization of copyrights.
Researchers also have a right to decide not to publish
their works. The university community should not allow
erroneous talk about how copyrights are decided
by someone other than the researchers themselves.

The vision for higher education and research in
2030 is the most visible entity that will be implemented
within the next ten years. Many tasks have
been loaded onto it: a nation with the most competent
labour force, a reformed higher education and an environment
for digital services, cooperation and transparency
driving research and innovation, the best
learning and learning environments of the world and
higher education institutions as the best workplaces
in Finland. The goals have been written in such a way
that one cannot disagree with them. I do, however,
criticise the implementation. The first basic rule of
management is the realistic resourcing of tasks. If resources
are inadequate, the amount of tasks needs to
be decreased. It is irresponsible to push unresourced
extra tasks to universities with an accompanying note
saying that you need to be creative.

Finally, some happy news. The year 2021 is the
year of research-based knowledge. A new possibility
opens for the science community to increase the
visibility of its activities. In order to advance close
cooperation, the Ministry of Education, Science and
Culture, the Academy of Finland and the Federation
of Finnish Learned Societies are launching a project
called The Year of Research-Based Knowledge 2021.
This is worth participating in.

Jouni Kivistö-Rahnasto
Chair, The Finnish Union of
University Professors